The man who killed Fredonia native Kendra Webdale in an incident that inspired Kendra’s Law is free.

State Sen. Cathy Young said Andrew Goldstein, who pushed Webdale off a New York City subway platform and into an oncoming train in 1999, should remain under state oversight. “I was reassured to learn he has not been discharged into the community but moved to a state facility where he will receive the attention that he needs,” she said of Goldstein, who has schizophrenia.

Young said a more permanent version of Kendra’s Law is needed. The law establishes a process for court-ordered assisted outpatient treatment for people with acute mental illness.

“It remains a temporary law and one that is sorely underutilized,” Young said. She has sponsored the Kendra’s Law Improvement Act to make the law permanent and close gaps in the system that prevent its wider usage. The bill has passed the Senate several times but died in the state Assembly.

“Nearly two decades after its passage, it has proven to be an effective and humane tool, with volumes of research that support its positive impact on patients, their families and the public,” the senator said.According to a recent New York Times article, Goldstein is still far from healthy. He rambled during an interview conducted on his last day at Sing Sing prison and said he hoped to be admitted to Creedmore psychiatric hospital in Queens.

Goldstein said “he could not be trusted to maintain treatment on his own, and that he would feel safer if someone was there to make sure he took his medication.” He knew that he killed Webdale but “I still don’t know how responsible I am for that death.”

The Times article stated that “He had been hospitalized more than a dozen times before killing Webdale, including one stay in the hospital just six weeks prior. He was repeatedly released to live on his own, where he often shirked treatment, he acknowledged.”

Webdale, 32, was a Fredonia High school and University of Buffalo graduate. She had moved to Manhattan to pursue career interests in photography and journalism.